Bob Carter steps away from NZC high performance role after 21 years

Former New Zealand Women head coach Bob Carter will be stepping away from his role as the high-performance coach, New Zealand Cricket (NZC) announced on Friday. That will bring down curtains on a 21-year career in which he oversaw progress of New Zealand's men's and women's teams.

"I feel like I've lived the dream," Carter said in an NZC release. "I've very much enjoyed offering support and contributing and, if that's helped players or teams go on and achieve success, then that's terrific - I'm delighted.

"But I think what's worked best at NZC has been the combinations, the teamwork, and the cooperation."

Born in Norfolk in east England, Carter played 60 first-class and 55 List-A matches for Northamptonshire and Canterbury before getting into coaching. He joined New Zealand men's set-up in 2004 as an assistant coach to John Bracewell. After a five-year tenure, he was again appointed assistant coach to Mike Hesson from 2012 to 2014 before taking over from Haidee Tiffen as New Zealand Women's head coach in 2019. He coached them in the 2020 T20 World Cup and the 2022 ODI World Cup that New Zealand hosted, before stepping down.

"We've been able to create sides that have been greater than their sum of parts, and that's a key ingredient in team sport," Carter, who will work in cricket as an independent contractor, said. "Sure, the individual performance is important, but it's the collective that has the greater potential. That's where the magic is."

Carter, 65, said he was pleased to leave the role in Lincoln at a time New Zealand are doing well in international cricket. The women's team won the T20 World Cup for the first time last year while the men whitewashed India in India in a Test series; no team had defeated India at home in a Test series since 2012, let alone returning a clean sweep.

"It's true that the game has evolved a great deal over the past twenty years," he said. "But the flipside is that the basics and fundamentals of batting and bowling have never really changed.

"Sure, the batters are playing shots we wouldn't have dreamed of in the nineties, and the bowlers are producing options and change-ups with an incredible degree of difficulty. But within all that, the framework that allows the players to execute so successfully, is still the same as it was 50 years ago.

"Our domestic cricket is very strong. I'm not sure that's widely recognised. The reason the Black Caps have continued to produce great batters and bowlers is because we have a strong, underlying domestic system. The White Ferns have been in transition over the past couple of years, but the domestic competitions have brought new players through and invigorated the established ones.

"The World Cup win last year was a great example of what that team is capable of."

Playing tribute to Carter, NZC chief high performance officer Daryl Gibson said, "Bob has been the voice of experience at Lincoln and has been involved in much of the success we've seen in the men's and women's games over the past decade or more. He's part of a wider high-performance team that underpinned and supported one of New Zealand cricket's golden periods - the legacy he leaves in terms of his contribution to NZC is enormous."